Sunday, 11 March 2018

The First Woman Doctors: Elizabeth Blackwell and her Circle

Women have always been involved in health care, as domestic healers and midwives. But in the 19th century, they began a quest to gain qualification as professional physicians and surgeons. The first to succeed in that aim was Elizabeth Blackwell, born in England in 1821. Her family emigrated to the United States a few years later. As a young woman, she determined to become a physician.

Her family was supportive, but not wealthy. To earn tuition money, she taught school. That took her to the South, first to Kentucky, where she saw slavery at first hand, and became a committed abolitionist. In the mid-1840's, she taught in a school run by Rev. John Dickson in Asheville, North Carolina. A former physician, he approved of her medical goal and let her use his medical library. In 1846, however, the school closed down.Blackwell moved to Charleston, South Carolina, and taught in a local boarding school. She lived in the house of Rev. Dickson's brother. Dr. Samuel H. Dickson, professor of medicine at the Medical College of South Carolina.

With Dickson's help and encouragement, Blackwell applied to several American medical colleges. But she was rebuffed at every turn due to her gender. She persisted and in 1847, was accepted at Geneva College in Geneva, New York (now Hobart College). The condition of her acceptance was unusual, to say the least. All the currently enrolled male students, about 150, had to agree. They did. She received her MD in 1849. She later furthered her studies in Paris and London hospitals, particularly in obstetrics.

Back in the US, Blackwell struggled to establish a medical practice, despite her excellent training. In the 1850's, she and her sister Emily founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. Emily herself was the third woman to get an MD in the US. In this endeavor they were assisted by Dr. Marie Zakrzewski, a young Polish immigrant Blackwell had mentored. (Above; Emily Blackwell, below: Marie Zakrzewski)

The Blackwell sisters also aided the Union war effort in the Civil War, helping to train nurses, though their efforts were often stymied by the male-dominated Sanitary Commission.Blackwell returned to her native Britain several times in the late 1850's to establish an infirmary there. Although that did not succeed, she did become the first woman listed on the British General Medical Register, in 1859. She also mentored Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman to earn an MD in France, the first woman dean of a medical school, and co-founder of the first hospital staffed by women.

In 1869, after sharp disagreements with Emily, Elizabeth settled permanently in the UK. In 1874, she founded a women's medical college in London with Sophia Jex-Blake, who she had helped train. The two did not ultimately get along, clashing over goals and management.

Blackwell retired from medical practice in 1877. She subsequently devoted herself to a broad array of moral and social reform causes. These included anti-vivisection, anti-vaccination, sanitation, Christian Socialism, women's rights, sexual hygiene, and eugenics. Her stances on some of these issues were often at variance with advances in medical and scientific knowledge, and led to conflict with other early women doctors. (image: Blackwell in later years)

One of them was Mary (Putnam) Jacobi, the first American woman to earn an MD in Paris, in 1870. Jacobi rejected Blackwell's view that medicine was foremost a moral calling. Jacobi argued that its primary objective was to cure the sick and advance medical science. She also disagreed with Blackwell's contention that women should concentrate on medical specialties like obstetrics and pediatrics. In these areas, she claimed, their "female" qualities would give them an advantage over men. Jacobi argued that women should enter all fields of medicine on an equal footing with men.

Despite her disagreements with her fellow pioneering women, Blackwell's persistence and dedication was an inspiration to women aspiring to medical careers. By the late 19th century, hundreds of women had qualified to practice medicine. Thousands and then millions more would soon follow. In 1974, the US government honored Blackwell by issuing a stamp bearing her portrait.

Further Reading: Thomas Neville Bonner, To the Ends of the Earth: Women's Search for Education in Medicine (1992)

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About Me

Following more than thirty years as a history professor, I am now doing freelance writing, editing, speaking, and consulting. I received my PhD. from
the University of Wisconsin-Madison and taught history at the College of
Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina from 1974 until 2008.

My most recent non-fiction work,
Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry (Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2011) has received excellent reviews and was a co-winner of the SHEAR
Prize (2012) for best book on the history of the early American republic.

I have reviewed manuscripts for journals and academic publishers and
have consulted or done research on various historical projects for individuals,educational television,and organizations, including most recently, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Atlantic Studies, South Carolina Educational Television, and University of South Carolina Press.

I have recently completed a novel of the American Revolution entitled Garden of Liberty and am working on a second novel, about a London physician and the body snatching trade in the 1790's, tentatively entitled Wells of Death.

SKILLS: Writing, Editing, Researching, Consulting, Teaching, Public Speaking. AWARDS, PRIZES, HONORS: SHEAR Best Book Prize, Society of Historians of the Early American Republic, 2012, co-winner.Distinguished Professor, College of Charleston, 2002Governor’s Distinguished Professor, College of Charleston, 1998South Carolina Historical Association, Prize for Best Paper published in Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association, 1993-94Distinguished Teaching Award, College of Charleston, 1985

MAJOR PUBLICATIONS: Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Associate Editor, South Carolina Encyclopedia. Responsible for hundreds of entries on medicine and science, many of which I wrote myself. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005.

Moonlight, Magnolias, and Madness: Insanity in South Carolina from the Colonial to the Progressive Eras. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.